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Saturday, July 15, 2017

Betty MacDonald, Betty MacDonald documentary and a veteran lawyer

Hello 'Pussy' it's Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and Pippi Longstocking:

Ty Cobb,
a veteran Washington lawyer, is joining President Trump’s legal team to
coordinate the response to the expanding investigation into possible
Trump campaign collusion with Russia’s election interference, reflecting
a growing sense among West Wing officials that the president’s private
lawyer, Marc E. Kasowitz, cannot handle the job alone.

Should I remain in bed, leave my country or fight against the dragon?

( see also the story by Wolfgang Hampel, ' Betty MacDonald: Nothing more to say ' )

Trump’s Legal Team Adds Lawyer Amid Expanding Russia Investigation

Ty Cobb will join President Trump’s legal team to coordinate the response to the Russia investigation.Credit
Jerry Cleveland/The Denver Post, via Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Ty Cobb,
a veteran Washington lawyer, is joining President Trump’s legal team to
coordinate the response to the expanding investigation into possible
Trump campaign collusion with Russia’s election interference, reflecting
a growing sense among West Wing officials that the president’s private
lawyer, Marc E. Kasowitz, cannot handle the job alone.

After
a tumultuous week in the fast-moving inquiry, Jared Kushner’s top
lawyer, Jamie Gorelick, also announced plans to remove herself from
matters related to the Russia investigation that are engulfing her
client, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and a West Wing adviser. She said she
will continue to represent Mr. Kushner on other concerns.

The
hiring of Mr. Cobb, a partner at the white-collar firm Hogan Lovells
and a former federal prosecutor, was welcomed by White House officials
who have complained that they have been repeatedly blindsided by
revelations not disclosed to them by the president and his family. The
hiring was first reported by Bloomberg News and confirmed by a person with direct knowledge of the move.

Mr.
Kasowitz, Mr. Trump’s combative longtime personal lawyer, has
aggravated his mercurial client by repeatedly demanding that the
president curtail his Twitter habits, which Mr. Kasowitz — and most
others in the White House — believe to be damaging to the president’s
legal and political cause.

But Mr. Trump has flouted his own lawyer, bragging to people around him that no one can control his actions.

Mr. Trump also privately criticized Mr. Kasowitz’s flat performance at a June 8 news conference after the Capitol Hill testimony of James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director.

And
angry, expletive-laced emails that Mr. Kasowitz sent to a critic were
published this week by ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative news
website.

But
the main issue, a person close to Mr. Trump said, was proximity. Mr.
Kasowitz commutes from his home in New York City and has been unable to
give the president the seven-day-a-week commitment he requires as the
investigation consumes a greater percentage of his time, aides said.

Marc E. Kasowitz after James B. Comey testified on Capitol Hill in June.Credit
Justin T. Gellerson for The New York Times

Emails sent to Mr. Kasowitz and his spokesman were not immediately returned.

For
weeks, Donald F. McGahn II, the White House counsel, has been urging
Mr. Trump to bolster his in-house team with a seasoned lawyer to help
deal with an expected flood of document requests from the Justice
Department’s special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.

The
idea was to have someone who could deal directly with Mr. Trump on the
matter and coordinate with his personal lawyer, which would allow Mr.
McGahn and the rest of the staff to tend to the day-to-day work of
keeping the White House functioning, a White House official added.

In recent days, hiring such a player became more urgent, people close to the decision said, with the admission by the president’s eldest son,
Donald Trump Jr., that he met during the heat of last year’s
presidential campaign with a Russian lawyer who promised to provide
damaging information about Hillary Clinton.

But
many of Washington’s best criminal defense lawyers have appeared
reluctant to work for a president known to ignore legal counsel and a
family that has repeatedly failed to fully disclose contacts with people
linked to Russia.

Mr.
Trump and his team met Mr. Cobb this week and were impressed by his
aggressiveness, according to a person who spoke with the president.

The
president’s team also recently contacted another high-profile
Washington lawyer, Emmet Flood, a partner at Williams & Connolly,
who had previously rejected Mr. Trump’s entreaties.

Ms.
Gorelick, a Democrat who began working with Mr. Kushner after advising
Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson during his confirmation hearings,
denied reports that she was quitting Mr. Kushner’s team. She will hand
over representation on matters related to the Russia investigation to
another powerful Democratic lawyer, Abbe D. Lowell.

“As
we have stated, once Bob Mueller and three of our partners left the
firm to form the Special Counsel’s Office, we advised Jared to get
independent legal advice on whether to continue with us as counsel,” Ms.
Gorelick wrote in a statement on Friday.

“As
a result of this process, Jared decided that Abbe would represent him
in the Russia-related inquiries. We are currently helping Abbe’s team.
We will continue to work on the matters for which we were originally
retained, with regard to ethics compliance, the SF-86 process and
related issues.”

Mr.
Kushner, who had previously failed to reveal a meeting with Russia’s
ambassador to the United States on a disclosure form, was briefly
present during the meeting with the president’s son in which the
anti-Clinton research was discussed.

Julie Hirschfeld Davis contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on July 15, 2017, on Page A13 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump Expands Legal Team Amid Concerns. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe

Finding Island Time: Vashon from Seattle

Take an illustrated day trip through Washington state’s largest city with artist Candace Rose Rardon.

by Candace Rose Rardon

I will always remember the first time I heard about Vashon Island — one of several islands located just off the coast of Seattle — because of how vastly different Vashon sounded from where I was then in the world: India.My good friend Erin, who grew up making regular pilgrimages to Vashon
to see her grandmother and other family members who lived there, was
visiting me in the bustling Indian capital of New Delhi. As we sat in a
café, the outside world of crowded streets and chaotic traffic whirled
as madly as a spinning top; inside the café, the island Erin described
seemed like another world entirely.She spoke of ferry rides and quiet harbours, digging for clams at low
tide and filling bowls with fresh blackberries from the wild and
rambling bushes that cover Vashon — it sounded like a place where the
top stops spinning and you can hear yourself think. I knew then — even from 11,265km (7,000 mi) away in India — that Vashon would be a place that I loved.

I knew that I would love Vashon even before I got here.

Taking the ferry to Vashon Island.

Picking blackberries right from the vine.

Since
that fateful conversation in Delhi, I’ve had the chance to make several
pilgrimages of my own to Vashon — with and without Erin; in the gray,
rainy heart of winter and in the sun-soaked glory of summer. Sometimes
just for a couple of nights, other times for as long as a month — but no
matter the different circumstances and lengths of each visit, I’m
reminded every time of the gifts that Vashon has to give.The island’s first gift is that of its proximity to downtown Seattle,
making it an ideal day trip for anyone passing through Washington
state’s largest city. One moment can find you wandering the lively stalls of Pike Place
Market, while another moment, you can catch a local C-Line bus to the
Fauntleroy ferry terminal in West Seattle, where a 15-minute ferry ride
brings you across the Puget Sound to the northern tip of Vashon. From
door to door (or shore to shore, you might say) the journey is but an
hour.There are more than a dozen islands in the Puget Sound — not
including the well-known San Juan Islands located a few hours north of
Seattle — and some of these islands have bridges connecting them to the
mainland. But the only road to Vashon is the ferry’s path across the
sound. Being technically comprised of two islands (Vashon and Maury
Islands), the only bridge you’ll find on Vashon is a man-made isthmus
connecting it to Maury Island. This is something the island’s residents feel strongly about. When a
bridge to the mainland was proposed in 1992, more than a fifth of
Vashon’s population at the time (around 2,000 people) appeared in
protest at a public hearing. A bridge, they felt, would surely bring
development, and take away from their island’s natural beauty and rural
calm.

The road to Tramp Harbor.

Be sure to get your coffee fix here.

Because
that is Vashon’s second gift — its extraordinary nature, and the chance
to explore such sylvan landscapes so close to a bigger city like
Seattle.Even still, Vashon has much to offer those who travel for culture and
food. Its quaint downtown is lined with art galleries and restaurants —
from the Hardware Store (home to the best burger in the Pacific
Northwest, I might argue), to a Thai restaurant and cozy tea shop. And
just down the road, another stretch of shops holds the Vashon Island
Coffee Roasterie, an organic health food store and the Seattle
Distilling Company. But for me, the delicious meals and moments of art or culture I have
on the island are always framed by the greater number of hours I spend
outdoors. It’s there where I immerse myself in Vashon’s unique blend of
expansive skies and acres of fir trees, harbours and beaches, and the
frequent vistas that open up of nearby, snow-capped Mount Rainier.If you’re able to rent a car, head south to Point Robinson to visit a
10-acre park, historic lighthouse and hiking trails; or head west to a
small peninsula called Jensen Point, where it’s possible to rent kayaks
or stand-up paddleboards, and glide along the placid surface of
Quartermaster Harbor. There, besides a few sailboats or passing crew
teams, your main companions will be eagles, herons and harbour seals,
who seem to delight in popping their heads above the surface when you’re
least expecting it.Glimpsing the island from the seat of a kayak is always my favourite
way to see Vashon, most especially when I get the timing right and start
heading for shore just as the sinking sun sets the sky ablaze with
colour.

Out on a kayak in Quatermaster Harbor.

Taking in the shoreline on a sunny day.

Those
moments of being wholly surrounded by a glowing pink sky — a sky more
vivid in colour than my humble paintbrush could ever hope to capture —
will forever stay with me, because they speak to Vashon’s third gift:
the very feeling of peace that first resonated with me on the other side
of the world.

Pink skies and peaceful nights.

There
are places we travel to in order to do things — visit museums, retrace
the steps of history, linger in the shadow of famous landmarks. I’ve
come to learn through my visits to Vashon, there are places that simply
invite you to be. To slow down, set your watch to “island time”
and join the quiet rhythms that govern its days. To let your mind relax
and reflect as your world becomes just sea, sky and tree-lined shores.If your journeys lead you through Seattle soon, I hope you’ll cross
the Puget Sound and experience Vashon, even for a day. But let me warn
you… it’s the kind of place that once you step foot on it, the island
soon draws you back for more.

About Me

Betty MacDonald Fan Club, founded by Wolfgang Hampel, has members in 40 countries.
Wolfgang Hampel, author of Betty MacDonald biography interviewed Betty MacDonald's family and friends. His Interviews have been published on CD and DVD by Betty MacDonald Fan Club. If you are interested in the Betty MacDonald Biography or the Betty MacDonald Interviews send us a mail, please.
Several original Interviews with Betty MacDonald are available.
We are also organizing international Betty MacDonald Fan Club Events for example, Betty MacDonald Fan Club Eurovision Song Contest Meetings in Oslo and Düsseldorf, Royal Wedding Betty MacDonald Fan Club Event in Stockholm and Betty MacDonald Fan Club Fifa Worldcup Conferences in South Africa and Germany.
Betty MacDonald Fan Club Honour Members are Monica Sone, author of Nisei Daughter and described as Kimi in Betty MacDonald's The Plague and I, Betty MacDonald's nephew, artist and writer Darsie Beck, Betty MacDonald fans and beloved authors and artists Gwen Grant, Letizia Mancino, Perry Woodfin, Traci Tyne Hilton, Tatjana Geßler, music producer Bernd Kunze, musician Thomas Bödigheimer, translater Mary Holmes and Mr. Tigerli.